


A Hymn You Know By Name

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christmas, Community: spn_j2_xmas, Disabled Dean Winchester, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 14:15:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2853794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every Christmas for Sam is different. Dean stays the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hymn You Know By Name

Sam wakes up on Christmas Eve thinking _2 and a half months_.

This thing, counting the days since The Accident, isn’t a conscious exercise on Sam’s part. It’s just something he’s taken to doing since. He wakes up and counts back from the previous day, how long it’s been since his brother fell 10 fight off a rickety roof and cracked his skull on the way down.

The doctor had used words like ‘long-term’ and ‘lifestyle changes,’ and talked about speech coaches and physical therapy and regular checkups and so many other things that had made Sam feel dizzy. He had never felt so overwhelmed in his life. He’s faced monsters and gods and Satan himself, but having the weight of his brothers care on his shoulders had never broken him the way nothing else could. 

“ _You’ll have to be the big brother now_ ,” the doctor had said. Sam had wanted to punch him. 

With a sigh, Sam pulls himself out of bed and stretches. His limbs creak in protest, still sore from the tree he had hauled to the bunker with the help of Castiel because Dean had insisted on getting the biggest one the seller had. It had been such a tiring morning that Sam had went back to sleep the moment they had it set up. He looks at the clock on the wall—6: 24 pm—and runs a hand through his hair. His shoulder smarts when he moves it, but he ignores it and pads his way out of his room and into the main hall.

He hears Dean and Castiel before he sees them. Quietly, he follows the muffled sounds to the kitchen where the two are posted up at the table, a mess of Christmas baking between them.

Sam doesn’t announce his presence just yet, instead just content to watch the scene before him. Castiel is talking about something, too soft and too far away for Sam to hear, but Dean is smiling anyway. The bulk of Dean’s attention is on the tray of cookies between them he’s decorating with icing. His tongue is poked out the side of mouth in his intense concentration, his hands shaking but steadier than Sam’s seen them in a while as he draws the outline on the plate of tree cookies Sam bought a few days ago.

Castiel has been a huge help in all of this. Sam thinks it might be Castiel’s inherent naivety that makes it so easy for him to interact with this new Dean with a simpler point of view on life. At times, it makes him feel jealous, that someone else can interact with his brother in ways that he can’t. Like he and Dean are speaking separate languages, and Dean’s dialect is one everyone else knows but Sam hasn’t mastered.

Sam walks into the room and gives a little wave. “How’re the cookies coming, guys?”

“Sam!” Dean says eagerly. He drops the bag of icing on one of the trees he was decorating in his excitement, smudging the green edges across the pan.

“Hey buddy,” Sam says. He doesn’t use the baby voice anymore, the one that came naturally the first few days after they had received Dean’s diagnosis. It took Dean looking at him with a look of fierce annoyance and a cry of I’m not a baby, Sam for him to stop that real quick. Sometimes he has to remind himself not to, that this is his big brother and not some 5-year-old. It gets easier. “You havin’ fun with Cas?”

“We’re making cookies,” Dean points to his and Castiel’s respective plates.

“They’re really good. Dean has been making more than me.” Castiel says, sounding suitably put-out. 

Dean grins, proud and embarrassment. “I work fast. Cas keeps eating his.”

Castiel shrugs a picks up a cookie to bite into one for emphasis. “Like I said, they’re really good.”

Sam takes a cookie from Dean’s tray and takes a bite of one even though he isn’t really hungry. “These are really good. Dean, did you make these?”

Dean blushes and ducks his head. “Cas helped.”

“Not that much,” Castiel clarifies. “Dean did it all pretty much himself.”

Dean blushes as red as the Santa hat on Castiel’s head and shrugs. Sam smiles and sets his half-eaten cookie back on Dean’s tray. Castiel excuses himself to the living room and Dean eats cookies while Sam sets out cleaning up the mess he left behind.

“When’re we gonna open presents?” Dean asks.

“Tomorrow, remember? When Jody and Charlie get here. We’ve gotta finish wrapping them first.”

Dean sighs in frustration. “I remember. I’m just asking.”

Sam feels guilty wash over him, cold and sobering. Dean has memory problems because of the accident, but he’s getting _better_. Better enough to get pissed at Sam whenever he asks him if he remembers something. He grips his hair, irritated with himself, and tries to find the words to apologize without infantilizing his brother further. 

“I might require some assistance,” Castiel calls out uncertainly. Sam looks over to see his fingers nearly taped together, a sea of wrapping paper and unwrapped gifts around him.

Dean rolls his eyes at Sam, a gesture so Dean-like it actually makes his heart skip a beat, and sighs long-sufferingly as he gets up to help Castiel with the gifts. Even though he’s still tired, Sam gets up to help as well. 

Dean’s motor skills still need work. His hands shake and spasm around the kid-safe scissors Sam got to replace the real ones. It’s not nearlyas bad as before though, and Sam notices he’s using the tricks his physical therapy coach taught him. He concentrates on cutting the lines, breathes in and out slowly from his mouth as he goes up the paper. When he’s finished, the line is jagged and uneven and doesn’t cover the limited edition Settlers of Catan game they got for Charlie, but Sam wraps it so the ill-fitted parts are at the bottom and swallows down a lump in his throat.

When Sam yawns wide enough to pop his jaw, Dean shoos him away. “Go take a nap, Sammy.”

Sam looks down at carnage of wrapping paper and twisted tape. A good quarter of the few presents are already wrapped, with Castiel working on on of the few last ones. Still, he shakes his head. “There’s only a few left.”

“We’ll take care of ‘em. Won’t we, Cas?” 

Castiel looks up from this meticulous wrapping work to give Sam a tape-covered thumbs up. Sam sighs and rubs a hand over his face. He _does_ still feel wiped despite the fact that he’s been sleeping since this morning. With one last look at all the presents, Sam reluctantly gets up and lies on the couch.

Lying down, Sam realizes just how exhausted he still is. He looks at where Dean is waving his warms around, instructing Castiel on how to do something while Castiel looks intently at him. His eyes slip close somewhere along the way, plunging him into a deep, dreamless sleep.

**____________________**  


Sam wakes up to the sound of _A Charlie Brown Christmas_ on TV.  
He rubs the last vestiges of sleep from his eyes with a sigh. When he’s more awake, he realizes thee’s a weight on him. He sits up and clutches the blanket in one hand. He recognizes it as the eyesore yellow number from Dean’s room.

“Rise and shine, Sammy.”

Sam looks to see Dean sitting on the other end of the couch wrapped in the extra blanket at Sam’s feet. He’s wearing an elf cap Sam and his face is covered in cookie crumbs. He looks ridiculous, and Sam goes to tell him so but stops halfway through. Then he reminds himself this is Dean, his _brother_ , and he’s allowed to grill him if he wants. He’s not a child.

“You look stupid.” Sam says with a smile.

Dean takes a bit of a cookie in and shrugs. “Look better’n you.”

Sam laughs and Dean answers it with a chuckle of his own. Dean grabs another cookie and offers it to Sam. 

Sam shakes his head. “No, thanks.”

Dean shoves the cookie in his face. “ _Eat_ , Sam.”

Sam dodges the cookie with a twitch of annoyance. He wipes the crumbs Dean gets on him off his shirt and shakes his head. “I’m not hungry, Dean. Go give Cas some.”

Dean doesn’t hold back any of the annoyance he feels when he shoves the cookie in Sam’s face again. “You haven’t eaten since yesterday. You’re gonna get sick, idiot.”

Sam open his mouth to protest but shuts it quickly. He thinks back to the day before—it had been a bad day for Dean motor-wise, and his frustration had caused a pretty big mess for Sam to clean—and can’t remember a single instance of him having anything more than a few glasses of water to hydrate himself after running off his own frustrations with a jog around the block.

He blinks up at Dean who’s looking at him pointedly. With a chuckle that’s more an exhale, Sam takes the offered cookie and takes a bite of it. Dean’s gaze doesn’t waver, and Sam gives a real laugh this time as he puts the rest of the cookie in his mouth. He’s not hungry at all, and that should definitely worry him, but Dean smiles at him, appeased, and Sam decides to worry about it later.

Dean reaches over to the side table to grab one of the decorative leaves of mistletoe Sam had been too tired to hang up. He grins at Sam wickedly, who only answers back with a weary eyebrow raise. 

Quickly, Dean dangles the mistletoe over Sam’s head and leans over to press a wet, sloppy kiss that catches the corner of his mouth more than this cheek. 

“Merry Christmas Sam,” Dean grins.

Sam looks at his brother. Looks at fuzzy patch of hair on his head where the hair never quite grew back around his scar. Looks at the wide, dopy smile that lets people who look a tad bit too long know he’s different. Looks at the bright green of his eyes. The same green they’ve always been, as long as Sam has been alive.

He licks crumbs from the cookie from his lip and grips Dean’s blanket in his fists. He thinks about Dean’s doctor saying _You’re going to have to be the big brother now_ , and smiles. He’s not gonna need to do any such thing. Dean’s always had that title, and he always will.


End file.
